


Nothing Can Resist

by Arsenic



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo [33]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2020-09-27 05:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20402119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Neal, Elizabeth and Peter take a trip to Victoria Falls.





	Nothing Can Resist

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from a Lao Tzu quote, "Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it."
> 
> Written for wcpairings for two brilliant prompts by embroiderama--whom I was SUPER happy to get, and I hope she loves what she got in return, because it's been lovely getting to write for her: (1) Once the anklet comes off, Neal, Peter and El go on vacation somewhere beautiful--gen or threesome; (2) Totally generic h/c prompt that will always make me happy: Neal or Peter is sick, some other character takes care of him, the end.
> 
> Thanks: To forsweatervests, as always, for the fantastic beta that made this fic ONE MILLION times better.
> 
> Used for my "insecurity" square on hc_bingo.

****It’s still dark out when Neal is pulled from bed by Elizabeth, laughingly saying, “C’mon lazy.”

Neal opens one eye to peer at the clock. “It’s four thirteen in the morning. I refuse to acknowledge your…” He takes a second to come up with the word he wants. His brain hasn’t quite come online just yet. “…slander.”

“Up,” Peter says, from across the room, already dressed in jeans and a button down.

“Why?” Neal asks, and if it comes out a bit as a whine, well, it’s four thirteen in the morning. Nobody with any self respect gets up at this time—stays up, maybe, in his old life—so it’s perfectly appropriate.

“Because it’s time to go,” Elizabeth says, like that explains anything.

Neal opens his eyes, and it’s then he notices the bags by the bedroom door. Stupidly, the first thing that occurs to him is, “I didn’t put in for vacation time.”

“I handled it,” Peter says, his most fond smile creeping over his face.

“Oh,” Neal says, wondering how the hell he missed that.

“Up,” Elizabeth repeats, more stridently, and well, Neal gets up. He supposes he can justify four thirteen in the morning for vacation.

*

Neal badgers them in the car as to where they’re going, but Elizabeth just pretends to sleep, and Peter pretends to listen to the morning news, smirking at Neal. Neal hates both of them; except for how he doesn’t.

When they check in, Peter hands over their passports and when the clerk asks for their final destination, he says, “Zambia,” like someone might say, “Newark.”

Neal’s jaw wants to drop and it’s only through years of training that he hides the reaction. Still, “Zambia?”

“Happy anniversary,” Elizabeth says softly.

Neal frowns. “It’s not— Oh.” Not _their_ anniversary, _his._ Six years since the day they legally removed the anklet, since he was given a consulting badge that didn’t say “criminal” on it. “Oh.”

“You mentioned wanting to get to all the continents,” Peter says as they walk to the gate. “We didn’t feel like Antarctica was ideal this time of year.”

Neal trusts words, words and smiles and the touch of a hand in the right place at the right time. He’s so out of practice with the two of them, though, and he wonders, exactly, when it was that they trained anything but honesty right out of him. He goes for simple, because the words that want to tumble from his mouth are embarrassing, maybe even more so than the way he wants to cling to Peter and Elizabeth, pin them down and keep them there, where he can properly thank them. He tests out, “Zambia.”

Peter breaks into a grin, and he’s the only person Neal knows who can make that expression so damn knowing. He reaches out to brush Neal’s hair from his forehead and says, “Happy anniversary.”

*

Neal can feel Peter and Elizabeth watching him, but it isn’t the worried watching, it’s the kind of watching that reminds him of the way he approaches art. He doesn’t change his behavior because of it. He’s learned—finally, _finally_\--that they watch because they want to see, not because they want to judge.

Neal wants to remember everything about this, from the sounds in the airport to the smell of the air once outside to the taste of his first drink, first meal from this place, this part of the world. Even the things that are entirely the same are important for the fact of their similarity.

Neal jokes with their taxi driver, cajoles him into teaching Neal the words in Bemba dialect, the man’s second language, for “hello” and “how are you?” and then laughs at his own pronunciation of them. He flirts with the receptionist at the hotel and, when they get to the room, flings himself onto the bed so hard he bounces right back off.

They are staying in the Honeymoon Suite. It is an open room, seeming to fit into the nature surrounding it. Neal revels at the slight falter in the receptionist’s voice when she brings up the reservation, looking curiously at the three of them. _Mine_, he thinks, and he knows his smile reflects the level of possession in the sentiment. He doesn’t have to be “good” here, doesn’t have to appear as Peter and Elizabeth’s pet-ex-con, the third-wheel they so generously accommodate. In New York, in their jobs, even with the openness of the secret, it is still a secret, Douglas’ love that dare not speak its name. Queerness, Neal has found, might not be a bar to success in the FBI, but polyamorous queerness with a subordinate rehabilitated con, well, that is something entirely else. Here, though, they are his, and everyone who cares to look will know it, if he has anything to say in the matter.

Peter laughs at him for the bed-move, which is totally fair. Elizabeth stands on the private patio, right above their very own lunge pool and says, “Oh, wow.”

Neal throws off, “Something prettier than you?”

Peter’s response is automatic. “Not possible.”

Neal can hear Elizabeth rolling her eyes, even if he can’t see it. There’s laughter in her voice when she says, “Just get your ass over here.”

*

Neal has actually seen a fair amount of magnificent things in his life. He took himself to Paris on one of his first significant takes when he was nineteen, which was clichéd, but also, incredible. He made his way to Rome from there, rode a bike along the Mediterranean coast in Spain, and sketched the onion domes of Moscow. He has stood over the expanse of the Grand Canyon and listened to his voice echo back at him, stared through the glass floor of the CN tower, and climbed the Mayan pyramids at Macchu Picchu.

Victoria Falls is something new, something he knows he will never see anything to compare to, not if he lives another one thousand years. There will be other experiences, different and new and perhaps even as exciting, but they will not be precisely like this, maybe not even this big, not ever again. There are times when, for all Neal respects the human mind’s ability to create, he recognizes there are some things beyond its capacity. Victoria Falls is one of those things.

The roar of it is beyond anything Neal could have imagined, filling up his ears, his _mind_. The water comes up to them, greets them with its spray, like a welcome, like a warning.

Peter says, “Wow,” and even though he shouldn’t, Neal somehow hears it over the water’s voice.

Neal grins and thinks about how Peter can use understatement the way most people use ecstatic flailing. It’s how Neal knows he’s cared for, most of the time. The thought still catches him unawares, and his mind almost fights against it, but not quite, because he’s here, standing between the two of them, becoming slowly soaked from a waterfall yards and yards away. He reaches out, and without having to looks, his hands find theirs. Or perhaps it is that they take his hands. The difference is minor, but significant. Neal has trained himself not to ask anything of Peter he cannot give, among these things, public displays of affection. Peter’s calluses rub against Neal’s, the breadth of his palm overtaking Neal’s in a way that Neal does not mind, has never really minded. Elizabeth’s hand fits neatly inside his, soft and strong.

The water is cold, fresh against his skin. His clothes are becoming heavy in a way that might bother him usually, but just now feels grounding.

Elizabeth’s laugh is sudden and high and everything Neal is thinking and feeling made into sound. He says, “Thank you,” even though he knows they can’t hear. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that he says it, and it is not washed away, not by the giant falls, the cascading amounts of the strongest force in the universe.

*

Seeing Peter climb onto the back of an elephant might very well rate in Neal’s very-top-five-favorite-life-moments-ever. It definitely makes the top ten. Peter can clearly tell his performance is being considered, because he scowls the scowl that made Neal thrum in a combination of fear and excitement for years until only the excitement was left.

Peter says, “Up you go,” in a tone Neal knows is meant to be threatening. Neal allows the guide to help him up, right behind Peter, who has Elizabeth tucked against his front. Neal leans in ever-so-slightly, his chin brushing Peter’s shoulder, then sits up straight without giving into the temptation to nibble at an earlobe or the back of Peter’s neck. He can behave in public, mostly. He just wants to take advantage of the allowance he’s being given, the space for affection which does not exist outside their house, sometimes not even within, depending on who is around.

The elephant’s movements are ponderous, slow, and Neal finds himself sinking into the rhythm of its back and forth sway. Their guide points out things Neal never thought he’d see, not as a kid, not as a prisoner, not even as a con, not really. The aardwolves, the cheetahs and lions, they are something grander than even he was able to dream for the most part, and yet here they are, in front of him, barely further than Peter.

Neal brushes a hand discreetly over Peter’s lower back. Peter looks over his shoulder and says, “I expect a sketch of this.”

Neal tells him, “It won’t be the same.”

“No,” Peter agrees. “Your version will let us see it from your perspective.”

“Mm,” Elizabeth murmurs. “Show us all the things we missed.”

*

Peter puts Neal at the window seat on the ride home. Neal stares until everything disappears into the clouds. He toasts with Peter and Elizabeth on cheap airplane wine and the words, “To adventures.”

He sleeps his way across the ocean, his head on Peter’s shoulder. When he awakes, Peter asks him, “Nice nap?”

*

It’s been almost three weeks since arriving back in New York when Neal gets the first headache. Diana and Jones have seen all the disorganized pictures, souvenirs have found places throughout the house, and Satchmo has forgiven them their cruel abandonment. Neal’s more annoyed at the headache than anything else, because they’re in the middle of a case, and it’s making it impossible to think.

Peter notices by the early afternoon, asking, “Are you all right? You’re squinting.”

Neal waves him off, takes four Tylenol when Peter’s not looking and the heat and pulse of the pain lessen, if they don’t go away. It’s something.

They make arrests somewhere between two and three in the morning. Neal barely makes it into their bed afterward. Elizabeth wakes up and takes off his shoes. She brushes his forehead, but he says, “Just tired,” and is asleep before she’s removed his socks.

*

Neal wakes up soaked in his own sweat, the thin undershirt he wore to bed literally dripping. He is _freezing._ Grateful he wasn’t in the middle when they fell asleep, he disengages himself from Peter, who murmurs in concern. Neal touches his hair and says, “Go back to sleep.”

He slips into the bathroom and takes a hot shower. It warms him, but nausea spikes in the middle of washing his hair and he vomits into the shower drain. It is gross and leaves him shaking. Neal fucking hates the flu.

He’s not an idiot, or a masochist, so when he wakes up chilled right down to his core in the morning, once again covered in sweat, he tells Peter, “I think I’ve got a 24 hour thing.”

Peter looks at him and says, “Yeah, you might be right about that.”

Elizabeth puts a glass of water and the phone by the bedside, and Neal goes back to sleep. He wakes up at some point and she feeds him soup. It threatens to come back up, but in the end it stays down.

He wakes up the next morning feeling fine, and doesn’t think much of it.

*

The next time it happens is about a week later, and Peter frowns. “I think it’s doctor time.”

“Peter,” Neal says, because, okay, evidently he’s having an immune system breakdown, which isn’t ideal, but it’s still the flu. The doctor’s going to tell him to get lots of rest and fluids. Neal points this out.

Peter looks suspicious. “You’ve barely even ever gotten sick, let alone twice in a month.”

“If it’s not gone by tomorrow, I’ll take myself in,” Neal promises, because he can be an adult, honestly, and Peter can only make so much seem Kosher by using the “partner” card. Taking Neal to the doctor for a flu strains credulity.

Elizabeth snorts. “Like hell. I’ll drive.”

Neal knows when to compromise.

*

He is better by the next day, so they don’t argue and he goes into work and everything is fine until he wakes up sicker than he can ever remember being in his entire life three afternoons later, having apparently fallen asleep at his desk. He barely makes it to the bathroom in time to be sick and bangs into a wall and a door before he manages that. The world is spinning, his bones are made of ice, his suit is wet straight through to the jacket and his head has been taken over by vicious hornets. He vomits until he dry heaves, and dry heaves until he’s sobbing, barely able to breathe.

His back feels like someone is carving into it with a knife, one of the large ones used for chopping, or other indelicate tasks. He’s pretty sure he can’t get off the floor, let alone get himself to Peter, or make Peter take him home.

The thought of having to get in a car makes him sob involuntarily. Luckily, the first part of the problem solves itself, because Jones peeks his head in to ask, “You okay, man?”

Neal doesn’t know if Jones can see him crumpled on the floor, or if his moans are as loud as they are in his ears, but one way or another, Jones must get the sense that Neal is _in no way_ all right. Time is fuzzy, but Neal knows it’s not long before Peter’s there.

Peter is so, so careful about picking him up. Neal can only say, “Peter,” his head hurting too much for anything else.

Peter says, “We are going to the doctor.” He has his I-am-not-panicking voice firmly in place. Neal does not argue, wouldn’t even if he had the energy.

*

The doctor asks Peter questions after a bit, because Neal’s distracted by how epically miserable he is. Then there are lots of needles. Peter holds Neal’s free hand, one finger stroking lightly down the middle of the back of Neal’s hand, along muscle and bone. Time’s a little fluid for Neal, but he thinks they’ve been there a long time, maybe hours. They were in the waiting room forever, and the doctor had lots of questions, endless questions, really. Neal asks, “What’s going on?”

Peter tells him, “Tests.”

There was a time, not even all that long ago, when Neal would have asked what tests, would have needed to know everything. The thought of asking is exhausting, though, and more importantly, Peter won’t let them do anything they don’t need to, or that will harm Neal. Neal does ask, “Did you tell him we’re next of kin?”

They have no legal relationship to each other beyond that. Every time Neal wants anything confidential released into Peter’s custody, there are a million forms to fill out. Peter has, on occasion, not been allowed into Neal’s hospital room while he was recovering from concussions, or, on one memorable night, having a broken wrist set.

Peter kisses his forehead. “Took care of everything, babe.”

Neal knows he should make sure nobody’s around to see. He’s so tired, though, and Peter’s lips feel cool and sweet against his skin, like something he’s allowed to keep, even if he can’t show it off. Neal tells Peter, “You’re very chivalrous.”

Peter tells him, in the you’re-adorable-when-you’re-high-tone, accompanied, confusingly, with his I’m-being-serious expression, “I think the stuff they gave you for the headache must be kicking in.”

“Probably,” Neal agrees easily, because, come to think of it, he _does_ feel much better. “But it’s still true.”

“That make you the damsel in distress?”

“Don’t be a chauvinist.” Neal frowns. “’Lizabeth’d have to kick your ass.”

“_That_ is definitely true.”

*

The tests come back positive for malaria. Before Peter and Elizabeth can even look his direction, Neal protests, “I took the pills. You _saw_ me take the pills.”

Elizabeth is holding back a smile, he can tell. Peter nods seriously, though, “He did. We all took them at the same time every day, so we would remember.”

The doctor says, “Ninety-nine percent of the time the pills work. On that last one percent, you get someone who’s unusually susceptible, and, well, it just doesn’t matter.”

Neal blinks. “Could’ve mentioned something _before_ I came down with malaria.” Then, because he’s still slightly loopy, “Malaria, really?”

The doctor has the grace to look sorry. “We’re already giving you meds through your IV. Another few hours and you can go home, start on the oral script.”

Neal’s too relieved at not having to spend the night in the hospital to do anything more than nod tiredly at the doctor. Peter and Elizabeth are both paying attention; someone will catch all the important details. That thought is weird, too, the knowledge of its truth, but it is, nonetheless, true. Neal wishes one of them was close enough to touch. He wants the solidness of skin against skin, something to take away the crashing dissonance of his mind, wants the overwhelmingness of safety.

No sooner does he wish it so, than Elizabeth’s hand is on his forehead, soothing back hair wet from the fever. He looks up at her. “Did I say that aloud?”

She frowns, “Say what, babe?”

Neal shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Few more hours,” she says, repeating what the doctor said, but it sounds more real when she tells him it, somehow. Neal can’t remember Elizabeth ever lying from him.

“Then we’ll take you home,” Peter agrees, and Peter has never made Neal a promise he hasn’t kept.

“Home,” Neal echoes, because for all that it should be routine, old hat, it is still novel, having somewhere to call that, to believe the label. The deed is in their name, but he is the beneficiary in their joint wills. The house is, to some extent, truly his. Even more, they have never turned him away, never made him feel like he doesn’t have a say in aspects of home care. It is the one place he belongs, the one place he can be himself, as he truly is. “Home.”

*

They tuck Neal into bed once they’ve gotten him home. Peter kicks off his shoes and gets in bed with Neal. Elizabeth leaves the room, and Neal can’t help the fact that his eyes track after her. Peter rubs his back. “She just wants to get you some water.”

Elizabeth comes back with water, and some fruit, and a pain pill, and feeds him each, taking it slowly.. When Neal starts to fall asleep mid-watermelon-bite, she puts the plate aside and crawls into bed with the two of them, Neal in the middle. He doesn’t get to be there often, Peter being their center, but it’s his favorite spot.

He’s tired, the car ride home and the walk up the stairs too much in his current state, still, not too tired to mumble, “Sorry.”

“For getting sick?” Elizabeth asks, and his eyes have somehow slipped shut, but he can hear the confused consternation in her voice.

“For making this the bookend to our trip.”

“This isn’t,” Peter says, rubbing at shoulder muscles that have tensed without Neal realizing it. “This is a part of life.”

It never really has been for Neal. Sure, there have been injuries on the job, and even the random cold or 24-hour bug, but not serious illness, no.

He must say some of that aloud, or at least mutter something that leads Peter to figure it out, because he laughs. “First time for everything, babe.”

“Glad my first time is with you,” Neal mumbles, thinking it would be funny at any other time, he could infuse it with just the right amount of double entendre. Right now it just sounds like exactly what it is: sincere. Then, because it’s kind of a jerk move to tell your lovers you’re glad they’re the ones who got stuck mopping your brow and holding your hair back, “Sorry.”

“Oh, I think we deserve a few first times,” Elizabeth says.

“You apologize too much when you’re sick,” Peter adds.

“And not enough when I’m not.”

Elizabeth’s breath ghosts over Neal’s lips as she giggles. Peter says, “You have your ways.” At least, Neal thinks he says that. Possibly, that’s part of his dream.

*

Elizabeth pesters Neal to remember his meds, Peter calls home from work every three hours, Neal does his best to be patient with their abundant attention when he’s not too busy soaking every bit of it up. At night they sleep next to him, not complaining when he wakes them up with his tossing, shaking, or the three of them all find themselves soaked in the morning.

Neal thinks that this weird, unsexy, quietly sweet thing they have might be love. He doesn’t say it aloud. He’s pretty aware the two of them have figured it out before now.

Peter calls him on it anyway, as Peter is wont to do. He waits until Elizabeth is running a bar mitzvah in Brooklyn to ask, “Did you think Africa was just for kicks?”

Neal shrugs, unsure of how to explain it’s the kind of thing he would do for kicks, unsure how to keep telling Peter that his worldview is often defined by the person he has been since he learned the truth about his father, since he left everything he thought mattered behind and shed every skin he had ever known. He does not _want_ to sound as though being publicly unacknowledged sometimes makes him concerned, about how they _could_ just up and change their minds, in truth, if they wanted to. It’s immature, and not real, and the worst part is, he knows that, he understands it.

Peter is silent for a moment and then tries, “The last, oh, eight years?”

Five years and three months since Neal moved in to their house, but Neal knows Peter is counting back to the first time Elizabeth put her hand on his knee and said, “Peter will never take the initiative, no matter how much he wants,” and Peter gasped, “El,” and Neal took what wouldn’t be offered. Neal says, “Trust isn’t really one of my strengths,” and he doesn’t smile as he says it, no matter how strong the urge to cover is.

“No,” Peter agrees.

“Sometimes belief is,” Neal tells him, quiet and sincere.

Peter smiles. “Yeah. On occasion.”

*

Peter makes a pot roast after Neal’s first day back at work, and the idea of solid food is still something of a challenge for Neal, but not so much that he doesn’t enjoy it. It tastes like concern and relief and words Neal is more comfortable feeling than verbalizing, even in the safety of his own mind.

Elizabeth makes chocolate éclairs, which Peter views as too froufrou to be a real dessert, but Neal loves. She puts almond cream in the middle, which is even better, and tastes of promises Neal thinks he should maybe start giving, start living up to.

They make time that evening to go through the pictures of Africa, set aside in the first rush of catching up on work and Neal’s illness. There’s hundreds upon hundreds of them, but they stop around two-fifty, at a picture of the three of them, damp and soaked by the spray of the falls, burnt by the African sun and still jetlagged.

They are all smiling so hard Neal can remember the way it hurt his cheeks, imagines it did theirs, as well. Elizabeth and he are both tucked against Peter, their heads tilted inward. They look like a family.

Peter says, “Order that print. That one’s going on the mantel.” Neal already has.


End file.
